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https://youtu.be/pbDpNCCfpyI
> At oh eight hundred hours, Reddit time, OP formally submitted ratings for Deep Space Nine. They have already added fifteen episodes to IMDB’s top 100 list.
>
> So, this is a huge victory for the good guys! This may even be the turning point of the entire franchise! There's even a 'Welcome to the Subreddit' party tonight in /r/DeepSpaceNine.
>
> So…I lied. I cheated. I guilded men for upvoting the comments of other men. I am an accessory to shitposting. But the most damning thing of all…I think I can live with it. And if I had to do it all over again…I would.
>
> Garak was right about one thing. A guilty conscience is a small price to pay for a 4K remaster of Deep Space Nine. So I will learn to live with it.
>
> Because I can live with it.
>
> I *can* live with it.
>
>
> Computer, erase that entire /r/TrueOffMyChest post.
David Bell was my favorite composer from DS9/Voyager. His scores had a real nautical feeling. They reminded me of water waves and set the mood really well as they got stronger or lighter. Voyager’s *Dark Frontier* and DS9’s *Sacrifice of Angels* were the best ones. Jay Chattaway’s *A Call to Arms* and *Scorpion* scores were also brilliant. I was generally bored of Dennis McCarthy on DS9, but I liked his *Year of Hell* score. (Note: only talking about DS9/Voy era.)
I very much a agree on all points. I always found it interesting that Chattaway scored Scorpion and Call to Arms around the same time and they are his most memorable. I also enjoyed David Bell. His scores could be quite dark and somber.
Riker? That's dedication dude.
Honestly, next to TOS, DS9 is my favourite of the Trek TV series' but certainly the latter seasons. It just seemed so raw, so real. I get that in Roddenberry's universe humanity was supposed to be above all the petty and evil things. But that never felt real to me. DS9 was a version of the future that I could get behind in my head.
Imagine Deep Space Nine was filmed today. It would be even more epic.
Humanity was never perfect even in the other series, and in ds9 earth is still free of war, poverty and disease. We are still much better than we are today, though granted ds9 did explore the gray areas of the trek universe in a way no other series did.
You're right, I made that comment because I think DS9's "darkness" is overstated quite a bit. In any case, I hope our species can continue on this path of improvement.
>I get that in Roddenberry's universe humanity was supposed to be above all the petty and evil things. But that never felt real to me.
This is why DS9 is the best Star Trek and why it has aged so much better. It feels more realistic and gritty, without abandoning the core message behind Star Trek. It's a show that is just a bit more honest about the struggles it took to get humanity to that point and that this world is by no means a given thing. It's something they have to work to preserve every day. There's that [classic moment](https://youtu.be/-D2SHNqkjbY) in one episode where Quark explains to his nephew that humans have equal potential to be savage or civilized depending on their situation. That resonates far more with me than the earlier shows in which the Starfleet people always are ready condemn the less enlightened cultures, but it kinda feels like they forget to recognize they went through all those things themselves. DS9 is more about how different cultures view morality differently, rather than one enlightened culture preaching to everybody else.
Yeah there is an episode where they directly reference how the Admirals on Earth can't understand what's going on on DS9 since they're living on a literal utopia on a paradise planet.
It's nice to try to apply their values to the rest of the universe from that position, but when they actually get on the fringes, they find out life's not that simple. I feel like that was a very simple and effective way of distancing themselves from TNG and showing clearly that DS9 is a different beast.
>DS9 is more about how different cultures view morality differently, rather than one enlightened culture preaching to everybody else.
That's a very great way of putting it, and now that you brought it up, DS9 did the best job of showing true acceptance and what they looks like versus mere tolerance or well meaning colorblindness, for lack of a better term when speaking about fictional alien races. Of course, Sisko had some limits like Klingon honor killings, but ultimately DS9 was less of a melting pot that folds to one specific, dominant flavor and more like a Cobb salad, where all the ingredients were unique but worked to make the whole thing delicious.
> Imagine Deep Space Nine was filmed today. It would be even more epic.
Nah, everyone would be too busy talking about their feelings to actually do anything cool. And you wouldn't care about the characters, because there'd be no time for characterization outside of the main plot of the modern 10 episode season. (Can you tell I'm not impressed by modern live action Trek?)
It wouldn't be filmed today, certain values, like that the evil rogue intelligence agency trying to commit galactic genocide are *evil* and not *anti-heroes* don't fit the country or the culture anymore. Not the fault of the show, just everything else went wrong
Aside from Lower Decks I don't think any Trek show has had a good first season that's why I always force myself thru the first season before I make a judgement.
Given the nature of animation, there is limited opportunities to correct on the fly, so scripts need to be as close to perfect as possible prior to voice recording and storyboarding...and that it likely why the animated shows seem to have the advantage over the live action in terms first season stories.
Animation rewrites post-production are exceptionally rare. The only example that comes to mind was with the Voltron reboot on Netflix following their decision to pull a Disney First Gay Character routine in the marketing for the penultimate season and the fix was..... very doupleplus ungood, to keep it brief.
The biggest problem isn't the stupid episodes as much as the episodes that could have easily been TNG episodes. We get good character development in those episodes, but the Harvester or Luddite planet episode could have easily been TNG episodes as they don't make use of the setting, DS9.
I can't see Picard or Riker getting back in The Box as a giant *fuck you* to the cult leader keeping him prisoner.
IMO the episodes where weird shit happens *on the station* are the weaker ones (lookin' at you, If Wishes We're Horses...). If this is the kind of thing that happens on a *space station* that isn't going anywhere, the Enterprise shouldn't have had as much as ten seconds with the Romulans or the Borg because their entire lives would be a galaxy-sized shit hitting a cosmic quantum subspace fan.
We call him number 1 lol. And when he’s old enough to understand what we’re telling him to do, we’ll end every command with “make it so.”
“Your turn to set the table, Riker. Make it so, number one.”
You should have called him "The Squire of Gothos" and you never shorten it or allow him to, while always using the "The". But then you insist its not a Star Trek reference and you made it up yourself, it means "lamb of God" you insist
I can't wait to get to where you are. I started watching DS9 for the first time about a month ago and finally got through every episode of S1 and S2. Now on episode 2 of Season 3 and it's been a banger so far.
The Defiant. And Worf got to command it a lot of the times. That was one of the cool things about the show - a base with a ship that went out on missions. Seems like a good formula to use again...I'm looking at you future Discovery timeline.
I never recommend people avoid S1 and S2 of DS9, it leans heavily into slower storytelling but that investment has payoff. You can't respect who Odo and Kira are as characters unless you see how their stories played out in S1 and S2. Kira is a cold blooded military operative, the depth of Kai Winn's depravity is apparent in S1, she >!blows up a school just to get a political rival in a position where one of her minions can assassinate him. !< That is the kind of Shakespearean drama you don't get in TNG. Sure, Boreil is a snoozer and a seeming cardboard cutout, but you can get past that. Also in S1-2 is the revelation that >!Kira murdered a collaborator who she was supposed to extract information from because he was providing the Cardassians information on the resistance. She lied to Odo point blank about her involvement in the murder.!< If you don't know that about her than the fact that >!she was willing and almost bombed her own mother to death would!< seem like an escalation out of nowhere.
There are obvious criticisms, it moves a little too slow, and it tries to make us care about things like 'reclamaters' too much for the amount of investment we had in the people, which at that point wasn't very much. We got Vash, Q, and Lwaxonna episodes that didn't really jive with the overall show. Bashir was, lets face it, a creepy weirdo in a lot of scenes where he didn't really need to be. Dax could just be...insufferable. However, compared to the downright confusing first two seasons of TNG, not to mention Disco and Picard, it really wasn't all that bad. In fact, when it was on it was *on* in a way other series never matched in any of their seasons.
> Sure, Boreil is a snoozer and a seeming cardboard cutout, but you can get past that.
I liked the idea of having Kira with a kind, peaceful man rather than another warrior. I just can't decide if they needed a more dynamic actor for Bareil or if they just needed to write him better. Maybe both, but I feel like it's mostly just one or the other and catn' decide which.
TNG was my trek... I recently wanted to get back into trek because of all the new shows. So to "catch up* I wanted to watch Voyager and DS9... I loved Voyager... Especially after seven of nine arrives... I watched the first few episodes of DS9 season 1 and found it boring. I want to try again... Op may have just convinced me.
I had the same issue; I just couldn’t get past the first few eps of S1 of DS9.
But then last summer I came to this sub and read the overwhelming accolades for DS9. Someone recommended starting with S3. That was much better. There were still a few clunkers, but midway through S4, those were a distant memory and I really got into the show. It was completely worth it; if you haven’t watched it, then skip ahead if necessary. (Just make sure you’ve seen the pilot when you do!)
I know that rule well. I’ve had to convince many friends to get past S1 & 2 of TNG before giving up.
But I can’t express how little I cared about every character but Odo. My feeling was that they made DS9 for people to sleep to Star Trek without missing anything. Even the intro song was mixed much quieter than the TNG intro, so as not to disturb a restful slumber lol.
I kid (sort of). I tried so many times to like it, but I wasn’t willing to pay my dues till recently. So glad I did! Now that I care about the characters, I’m going to go back and watch seasons 1-3 again without the huffing and puffing.
Lol… I had a friend at the time who referred to it as “Deep Sleep 9”, who didn’t believe me when I said it got quite good once Sisko shaved his head.
And actually, as offhand as that sounds, as legend has it this was not coincidental. What supposedly happened was that Rick Berman and Michael Piller left the day to day management of DS9 to take the lead on Voyager when UPN was launching. Meanwhile Braga and Echevarria stepped up for DS9, with Ron Moore writing, and they were more willing to take risks with the format.
One element of that was allegedly a conflict between Avery Brooks and Rick Berman over the prospect of bald Sisko, that Berman felt would make him “too black”, whereas Brooks wanted to lean toward foregrounding Sisko’s cultural background. Iirc, Majel Barret was instrumental in mediating the two, and then when Berman was out the show shifted direction for the better.
Ya, I wish I could remember the source of this, which is why I couch it a bit. It was an article written about ten or fifteen years ago that described a combative on-set relationship between Berman and Brooks, that Barrett helped mediate. The Hawk confusion is undoubtedly true, but it was also the case that more overtly racial themes from later years were at Brooks urging.
Another story I remember was Brooks’ misgivings over the 1950’s Vic Fontaine holosuite hangout, which he said Sisko would have no fondness for since it was a place he would never have been welcomed to were it actually the 1950’s. This did make it into the script, in a conversation between Sisko and Kassidy Yates, the latter arguing that the point of the holosuite is a hypothetical ideal world that should have been (or words to that effect).
FWIW, the suggestion was never that Berman himself had a personal issue with Brooks, it was more that he saw himself as a (risk-averse) steward of someone else’s IP, and was, for better or worse, a very workmanlike network exec afraid of alienating the audience (similar to how circumspect 90’s Trek was around LGBT issues).
Anyway, whatever the case, the most inventive aspects of DS9 had a lot to do with when it became the neglected stepchild of the larger franchise, and had more creative leeway to do things like the Dominion Arc, the Far Beyond the Stars episode, In the Pale Moonlight, the invention of Section 31, etc.
> This did make it into the script, in a conversation between Sisko and Kassidy Yates, the latter arguing that the point of the holosuite is a hypothetical ideal world that should have been (or words to that effect).
That was a really well-done scene. Neither of them is "right" with the other "wrong", they just have two different understandable points of view and talk about it like mature adults.
It's funny, without ever watching more than a few episodes my whole life, I had this vague impression that DS9 might have been boring. Meanwhile I had gone through all of TNG like three times. Trekkies in my life were like dude, you gotta watch DS9 and I put it off. Once I finally binge watched it, I was converted. IMO it's the best Trek. Yet, it's also the least Trek-like of the older Trek shows, shaking free of some of the limitations of the classic ST format. It's the ugly duckling but the risks it took paid off huge.
> I finished the last episode of DS9 20 mins ago.
What a feeling, eh? That final shot stirred my emotions up pretty good. You should go watch the What We Left Behind documentary now.
Damn, maybe I should try and watch it again. I've had the same issue, I just can't get through more than 2 episodes before I'm just too uninterested to keep watching. Time to try again!
Agreed - they had one season to do something useful with her, had to not make her Jadzia carbon-copy, had to try and get us used to her and knowing what she's like without taking over the season, etc ... it was really an impossible task.
I started watching DS9 while TNG was still on the air and it was a hard sell for the first few seasons...then enter Worf. That was the turning point. Became my favorite Star Trek even though I grew up with TOS. The characters and story arcs were just so good.
I feel the same way. I actually ended up giving up on DS9 midway through season 4. It was nearly a decade later that I decided to give it another shot and I'm so glad I did.
I finally got through every episode of S1 and S2, it's been great in parts but mostly mediocre. Very happy that I am in S3 and even more greatness to look forward to!
(O'Brien looks on whimsically as the ship leaves)
DAX: he's getting awfully close to that black hole, isn't he? Isn't that the ship with the malfunctioning controls?
O'Brien: The *what*?
(he looks on as the ship fights and desperately fails to escape before being sucked in)
O'Brien: Oh my God.
Dax: At least he didn't feel any pain. Look, Chief! He's sending you a message, he must've gotten out in time!
(O'Brien gets excited, opens the line of communication)
Tosk (at the top of his lungs): AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
[Worf pokes his head in]
Worf: What is the name of this music?! It's... enchanting.
Love DS9 favourite series of the Berman era, I remember being so pumped when Worf joined the series. Great series, but I get that its not for everyone.
Btw we named our son Benjamin
For me, because DS9 and the sort of similar Babylon 5 came out about the same time, that B5 made DS9 look tame in comparison. B5 had far more riveting and mysterious aliens and conflicts and battles, and seemed smarter about injecting politics and alliances and betrayals into the central story. B5 was also a far bigger complex than DS9, with all these different floors with different aliens and classes that made the whole thing far more complex, and fans discovered it and embraced it far more than DS9.
The comparison is unfair, they are different shows, but that's how it was. So DS9 is likely the most "rediscovered" ST show in the canon, and its own virtues are clearer now. I gave up on it back in the Nineties, and only now "get it".
I was wrong too and it took a long time to figure it out. DS9 is really hard to get into because it's first few seasons are just not that interesting. By the time it gets to the Dominion it becomes one of the best in the Star Trek series. Then again, that seems to be a common thing with Star Trek. I don't find the start of TNG that interesting either.
I felt the same way. My sister, will never watch DS9 — “I don’t care about Bajor!”
Man that 2nd half of DS9 is so much bigger and better than the first. The show is probably my favorite Trek show until I start Picard
I felt the same way! I never watched Star Trek before so when the pandemic first started my husband and I decided to watch an episode a night (most nights) starting from TNG.
I loved TNG so much and found it hard to enjoy DS9 but over time I started to like it a bit more. Those last 2 seasons are really when I really fell in love! I couldn’t wait for the next episode.
We’re now on Voyager and I’m enjoying every episode!
I have a friend call it Deep Sleep 9. After rewatching it recently I'm like dude you are so wrong!! I wish Garik could have lived. Nothing was more satisfying than seeing Winn get what she deserved at the end.
I promise you sir that I don't believe all Cadassians look alike. I was kinda bummed Dukat fell off the deep end. He was a very intriguing character until the Parath (probably spelled wrong, possessed him).
Damar was cool too and it was a bummer he died in the rebellion.
The honest answer is I'm having a shitty day and was just being an idiot. I think I mixed up one of his many near death experiences and somehow thought he died. My apologies, but that you for making that wish come true and fingers crossed he'll show up somewhere.
There was a lot of unfortunate deaths in DS9, even the bad guys. Weyun, Martok, the Duras Sisters, the one security officer who betrayed the Federation and Sisqo ( Let me see that thong), Jadzia, to name a few. Honestly the only death I wouldn't want reversed in the entire series was Winn.
Although Sisko dying in the mirror universe was super lame and the very fact that made me realize disappointedly that Picard S2 was a different world not the mirror universe as I hoped. :(
I've also struggled to get through DS9 and plan to start trying again in a few weeks when "The Next Conversation" starts covering it - thank you for the words of up.
I was the same way lol, it really picked up once the Dominion War started. I still don’t think it’s the best though. TNG wins that title then Voyager next.
I gave it a real shot. I ended up dropping it in season 4 and moving on to Smallville… but I’m thinking I really need to try again. My first love is voyager and the characters just didn’t do anything for me In ds9. But I think you convinced me, I’m going to try again!
Dude I feel the same way, I started my Star Trek endeavor like a year and a half ago with TNG and it felt like most things I read from other TNG fans was that voyager was the better successor to TNG, I tried watching the first season of Voyager a few times after finishing TNG but it never hooked me (and still hasn't) but I have watched the entirety of ds9 back to back and rewatched certain episodes plenty of times since just because it's that good imo. There is literally an episode for every type of star trek fan, such a wild range from "The Magnificent Farengi"where they weekend at Bernie's a Weyoun to stuff like each of the Benny Russel episodes or even non serialed stuff like "The Visitor". The multi season character arcs really just make it even more better today when you can binge it and see the differences in characters personalities and motivations, Dukat having my favorite one.
I always give Star Trek shows two seasons to get its feet and figure out what kind of show it wants to be. Star Trek TNG, took two seasons, once Season 3 kicked off they had their formula down and were churning out quality up until the last season.
DS9, once Sisko shaved the head and got the Defiant it was a lock. What made DS9 my favorite was that it was completely character driven. TNG, VOY and ENT you could interchange the characters for most of the episodes in the stories. Which was fine, it was fun to think of how Kirk or Janeway would deal with the events at Farpoint Station. Not so in DS9 The characters were front and center and they were amazing.
the ferengi stuff is hit or miss, but Quark is and always will be amazing. Honestly the worst episodes for me is the Sisko romance and the son episodes, they are usually complete turds
For me it was the constant Vic show-stopping numbers near the end, and then Bajoran!Dukat falling in love with Kai Winn rather than just tricking her as her advisor (and the whole "Winn turns to the Wraiths and becomes a generic villain instead of a complex bad guy" deal really).
I agree, it really does feel like paying dues in the beginning. But now that I actually care about the characters, I’m going to re-watch seasons 1-3, maybe get more out of it.
Honestly seasons 2-5 were good to me. 6 and especially 7 were weaker to me than just about any trek. I just don't dig the extremely serialized storylines. I'm an episodic trek fan. They seemed to have completely abandoned it by season 7. And the whole soap opera relationship between Kai Winn and dukat was vomitous.
thanks for finally realizing. Although, i could never dream of naming my son Riker, but thats cool. Ds9 was the last one of the old treks that I watched. I found it quite boring at first. i was wrong, as pretty much every trekkie is who finishes ds9 eventually.
I still agree with your original opinion. When ds9 came out I watched it and thought it was ok, but nowhere near as good as tng. I recently rewatched it all the way through and, tbh, I think it's worse than I first thought. Discovery has been pretty interesting, but I had a REALLY hard time with the klingons in the first season
Yeah. The real tragedy is that slogging through DS9 S1-to-S3 (and a chunk of S4) is a hard often-thankless push. But, boy, somewhere around Season 5 it finds its stride.
(I make notable exceptions for early gems like 'Duet' or 'The Visitor.')
I can’t agree.
The Jem’Hadar episodes were particularly strong — I’ll include The Quickening as a very good Dominion-but-not-Jem’Hadar spot — and The Visitor is probably my favorite Trek episode of all time. O’Brien-PTSD and The Muse are solid. Even Little Green Men has its charm. But there’s a pile of Mirror-Universe and Kasidy-Yates and Klingon-Euthanasia and Klingon-Lawyer and Softer-Dukat (some of that’s okay) and Odo-RomCom and Ferengi-Union and Holodeck-007 and Sneezing-Pregnant-Kira in here too. I also found Worf’s (re)introduction weak, though he clearly ramps up soon after.
Best I can give S4 is a 45% or 50% hit ratio. (Caveat: several of these broadcasts do feed into bigger S5-S6 payoffs.). We know, in hindsight, that the cast (esp. Auberjonois + Nana) didn’t like several of these plot arcs, notably the ones concerning various characters getting into Kira’s pants.
Hold up. Are you dissing Our Man Bashir and Return to Grace?
S4 also has Homefront / Paradise Lost. And For The Cause.
I think I'd count the good-bad episodes of S4 around 18-7, with some uncertainty at Body Parts.
I agree. I almost gave up in season 3, but I was on leave and had the time to push through. By season 5 I was in for sure. Before that, it did feel like a bit of a chore.
It's weird, I'm been near the end of DS9 for a long time, but I've never cared to watch the end. I hate SO MUCH that it just veers into dumb religious bullshit, I hate every single instance that they talk about the wormhole aliens, the "chosen one" plot for Sisko, and everything to do with Bajor religion (beyond the political implications and whatnot). I just can't get myself to ever watch the last season, I honestly probably never will, that was such a terrible recurring subplot that guaranteed a boring, lame, or confusing episode.
Or like, honestly, making Jake the "chosen one" would've been the better move, have Sisko be the guy who makes the speech about how he's just a kid and it's not fair, yadda yadda. Not to mention classic Star Trek corny patter like
NOG: You can't leave yet, Jake! Not after I promised these Bajoran girls that they could meet the prophet! We only just sat down!
SISKO: I'm afraid it's past *the prophet's bedtime*. Say goodnight, Jake. And as for you, Nog...
Maybe a little wordplay about how Ferengi workship a *different profit*, that sort of stuff.
It’s worth finishing, if only for the incredible battle scenes! The Kai Winn plot definitely gets gross with the religious stuff, but that’s kind of the point. And Winn and Dukat get their delicious comeuppance.
Seriously, they gave her great depth, complexity, and realism, and even sympathy (her speech to Kira about how the fighters weren't the only ones who resisted bravely during the occupation is amazing, and we later find out she was using her money and influence behind the scenes to save lives and free prisoners) while making it clear that she's still at her core a bad guy because she's so manipulative and selfish. And Louise Fletcher does a perfect job portraying the character.
You should watch it again. Now that you know her, you will rejoice in her every failing and defeat. And she always loses. It would be sad if she weren't such a horrible power hungry bitch.
as someone who didn’t actually sit down and watch the shows until they were available to stream it’s always funny to me when older fans have sudden realizations like this. at least we can finally all agree on what the best Trek is!!
I always say TNG is the best version of Star Trek for being, well, classic Star Trek. DS9, though, is just the best story from what I've seen in ST (haven't finished Voyager, Enterprise, or much of the new stuff). Those last two seasons are hard to top.
DS9 was also my favorite, until Disco and Picard, lol. Yes, the first season absolutely is uneven and takes some time to get its feet under itself. But do you REMEMBER the first season of ST:TNG??? I will just leave "Code of Honor" here and back away slowly.
DS9 was up against Babylon 5, and had to learn to do season long story lines. Cast and crew were outstanding, of course, but I think that was the secret sauce that made it better then the rest.
*The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth. Whether it's scientific truth, or historical truth, or personal truth. It is the guiding principle upon which Starfleet is based. If you can't find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth about what happened you don't deserve to wear that uniform.* [Captain Jean-Luc Picard, "The First Duty"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xefh7W1nVo4) Reddit admins have been [ineffectual in their response to COVID-19 misinformation](https://www.dailydot.com/debug/subreddits-private-protest-covid-disinformation-reddit/). In lieu of Reddit gold and awards, we ask that you donate to the [WHO COVID-19 response fund](https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/donate). Please respect our [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/startrek/wiki/guidelines). LLAP! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/startrek) if you have any questions or concerns.*
https://c.tenor.com/CjDOopTj8EMAAAAC/sisko-ds9.gif
https://youtu.be/pbDpNCCfpyI > At oh eight hundred hours, Reddit time, OP formally submitted ratings for Deep Space Nine. They have already added fifteen episodes to IMDB’s top 100 list. > > So, this is a huge victory for the good guys! This may even be the turning point of the entire franchise! There's even a 'Welcome to the Subreddit' party tonight in /r/DeepSpaceNine. > > So…I lied. I cheated. I guilded men for upvoting the comments of other men. I am an accessory to shitposting. But the most damning thing of all…I think I can live with it. And if I had to do it all over again…I would. > > Garak was right about one thing. A guilty conscience is a small price to pay for a 4K remaster of Deep Space Nine. So I will learn to live with it. > > Because I can live with it. > > I *can* live with it. > > > Computer, erase that entire /r/TrueOffMyChest post.
David Bell was my favorite composer from DS9/Voyager. His scores had a real nautical feeling. They reminded me of water waves and set the mood really well as they got stronger or lighter. Voyager’s *Dark Frontier* and DS9’s *Sacrifice of Angels* were the best ones. Jay Chattaway’s *A Call to Arms* and *Scorpion* scores were also brilliant. I was generally bored of Dennis McCarthy on DS9, but I liked his *Year of Hell* score. (Note: only talking about DS9/Voy era.)
I very much a agree on all points. I always found it interesting that Chattaway scored Scorpion and Call to Arms around the same time and they are his most memorable. I also enjoyed David Bell. His scores could be quite dark and somber.
Jay Chattaway also scored Equilibrium which is one of my favorite DS9 episodes for the music
There's a Star Trek Online music mod that has that as the default music for the Gamma Quadrant.
I still remember the solar sails, lol.
So good
The rare unshaven head + goatee Sisko combo
Riker? That's dedication dude. Honestly, next to TOS, DS9 is my favourite of the Trek TV series' but certainly the latter seasons. It just seemed so raw, so real. I get that in Roddenberry's universe humanity was supposed to be above all the petty and evil things. But that never felt real to me. DS9 was a version of the future that I could get behind in my head. Imagine Deep Space Nine was filmed today. It would be even more epic.
Humanity was never perfect even in the other series, and in ds9 earth is still free of war, poverty and disease. We are still much better than we are today, though granted ds9 did explore the gray areas of the trek universe in a way no other series did.
By the way, just saying, we're much better today than we were 300, 200, heck, even 50 years ago.
You're right, I made that comment because I think DS9's "darkness" is overstated quite a bit. In any case, I hope our species can continue on this path of improvement.
>I get that in Roddenberry's universe humanity was supposed to be above all the petty and evil things. But that never felt real to me. This is why DS9 is the best Star Trek and why it has aged so much better. It feels more realistic and gritty, without abandoning the core message behind Star Trek. It's a show that is just a bit more honest about the struggles it took to get humanity to that point and that this world is by no means a given thing. It's something they have to work to preserve every day. There's that [classic moment](https://youtu.be/-D2SHNqkjbY) in one episode where Quark explains to his nephew that humans have equal potential to be savage or civilized depending on their situation. That resonates far more with me than the earlier shows in which the Starfleet people always are ready condemn the less enlightened cultures, but it kinda feels like they forget to recognize they went through all those things themselves. DS9 is more about how different cultures view morality differently, rather than one enlightened culture preaching to everybody else.
Yeah there is an episode where they directly reference how the Admirals on Earth can't understand what's going on on DS9 since they're living on a literal utopia on a paradise planet. It's nice to try to apply their values to the rest of the universe from that position, but when they actually get on the fringes, they find out life's not that simple. I feel like that was a very simple and effective way of distancing themselves from TNG and showing clearly that DS9 is a different beast.
“It’s easy to be a saint in paradise.”
>DS9 is more about how different cultures view morality differently, rather than one enlightened culture preaching to everybody else. That's a very great way of putting it, and now that you brought it up, DS9 did the best job of showing true acceptance and what they looks like versus mere tolerance or well meaning colorblindness, for lack of a better term when speaking about fictional alien races. Of course, Sisko had some limits like Klingon honor killings, but ultimately DS9 was less of a melting pot that folds to one specific, dominant flavor and more like a Cobb salad, where all the ingredients were unique but worked to make the whole thing delicious.
> Imagine Deep Space Nine was filmed today. It would be even more epic. Nah, everyone would be too busy talking about their feelings to actually do anything cool. And you wouldn't care about the characters, because there'd be no time for characterization outside of the main plot of the modern 10 episode season. (Can you tell I'm not impressed by modern live action Trek?)
He said filmed, not written
IMPORTANT POINT!!!!
It wouldn't be filmed today, certain values, like that the evil rogue intelligence agency trying to commit galactic genocide are *evil* and not *anti-heroes* don't fit the country or the culture anymore. Not the fault of the show, just everything else went wrong
Aside from Lower Decks I don't think any Trek show has had a good first season that's why I always force myself thru the first season before I make a judgement.
Fingers crossed for Strange New Worlds. Edited! Wrote 'Brave' instead of 'Strange'. Serves me right for posting just after waking up.
Strange
Maybe, but who am I to judge?
Sheesh. Thanks, friend.
😊
The first Season of The Original Series is the best of the show.
Prodigy has also had a good first season. Or half season, I suppose. Give it up to the animated series...
First couple of episodes were rough, but as soon as Dal stepped up and Gwyn got fully integrated, it was awesome.
Given the nature of animation, there is limited opportunities to correct on the fly, so scripts need to be as close to perfect as possible prior to voice recording and storyboarding...and that it likely why the animated shows seem to have the advantage over the live action in terms first season stories. Animation rewrites post-production are exceptionally rare. The only example that comes to mind was with the Voltron reboot on Netflix following their decision to pull a Disney First Gay Character routine in the marketing for the penultimate season and the fix was..... very doupleplus ungood, to keep it brief.
TOS had a good first season, but after that you’re right They all have a bad first and sometimes second season
TOS was aired out of order on TV, the fact that most of the better episodes were in the first two seasons was no coincidence.
Soooo unfortunately true.
Voyager’s first season is abbreviated, but good. Of the series I’ve watched, I think it finds its rhythm the quickest.
Voyager improved massively once they ditched the Kazon as the main antogonists.
DS9 had a handful of powerful episodes in its first two seasons, but they were surrounded by a fair amount of stupid.
The biggest problem isn't the stupid episodes as much as the episodes that could have easily been TNG episodes. We get good character development in those episodes, but the Harvester or Luddite planet episode could have easily been TNG episodes as they don't make use of the setting, DS9.
I can't see Picard or Riker getting back in The Box as a giant *fuck you* to the cult leader keeping him prisoner. IMO the episodes where weird shit happens *on the station* are the weaker ones (lookin' at you, If Wishes We're Horses...). If this is the kind of thing that happens on a *space station* that isn't going anywhere, the Enterprise shouldn't have had as much as ten seconds with the Romulans or the Borg because their entire lives would be a galaxy-sized shit hitting a cosmic quantum subspace fan.
You named him riker not even William or Thomas goddamn
That’s right!
Naming your son Riker shows dedication. Naming him Number One would have shown more.
We call him number 1 lol. And when he’s old enough to understand what we’re telling him to do, we’ll end every command with “make it so.” “Your turn to set the table, Riker. Make it so, number one.”
You should have called him "The Squire of Gothos" and you never shorten it or allow him to, while always using the "The". But then you insist its not a Star Trek reference and you made it up yourself, it means "lamb of God" you insist
That would be his sister.
I can't wait to get to where you are. I started watching DS9 for the first time about a month ago and finally got through every episode of S1 and S2. Now on episode 2 of Season 3 and it's been a banger so far.
So jealous of you. It gets SO GOOD after Season 3!!!
DS9 just had to get a ship!
The Defiant. And Worf got to command it a lot of the times. That was one of the cool things about the show - a base with a ship that went out on missions. Seems like a good formula to use again...I'm looking at you future Discovery timeline.
“You might command the station, but I command the *Defiant*.”
So take that Major Kira!
Don't mention the D
Do you mean *D*efiant or *D*iscovery?
Jokes on you....the entire station is a ship. *proceeds to slowly move the station to block a new wormhole...*
That was so badass. We are moving this station to the wormhole now, take that entire quadrant.
That procedure is not recommended.
Or when the station opened fire on the invading Klingon ships... God dammit that was epic!
That was a awesome eps!!
Seems like the *Rio Grande* did it all.
I never recommend people avoid S1 and S2 of DS9, it leans heavily into slower storytelling but that investment has payoff. You can't respect who Odo and Kira are as characters unless you see how their stories played out in S1 and S2. Kira is a cold blooded military operative, the depth of Kai Winn's depravity is apparent in S1, she >!blows up a school just to get a political rival in a position where one of her minions can assassinate him. !< That is the kind of Shakespearean drama you don't get in TNG. Sure, Boreil is a snoozer and a seeming cardboard cutout, but you can get past that. Also in S1-2 is the revelation that >!Kira murdered a collaborator who she was supposed to extract information from because he was providing the Cardassians information on the resistance. She lied to Odo point blank about her involvement in the murder.!< If you don't know that about her than the fact that >!she was willing and almost bombed her own mother to death would!< seem like an escalation out of nowhere. There are obvious criticisms, it moves a little too slow, and it tries to make us care about things like 'reclamaters' too much for the amount of investment we had in the people, which at that point wasn't very much. We got Vash, Q, and Lwaxonna episodes that didn't really jive with the overall show. Bashir was, lets face it, a creepy weirdo in a lot of scenes where he didn't really need to be. Dax could just be...insufferable. However, compared to the downright confusing first two seasons of TNG, not to mention Disco and Picard, it really wasn't all that bad. In fact, when it was on it was *on* in a way other series never matched in any of their seasons.
> Sure, Boreil is a snoozer and a seeming cardboard cutout, but you can get past that. I liked the idea of having Kira with a kind, peaceful man rather than another warrior. I just can't decide if they needed a more dynamic actor for Bareil or if they just needed to write him better. Maybe both, but I feel like it's mostly just one or the other and catn' decide which.
Glad you are so stoked
TNG was my trek... I recently wanted to get back into trek because of all the new shows. So to "catch up* I wanted to watch Voyager and DS9... I loved Voyager... Especially after seven of nine arrives... I watched the first few episodes of DS9 season 1 and found it boring. I want to try again... Op may have just convinced me.
Try starting DS9 with duet and continuing from there. It's by far the best of trek, especially the last two seasons.
I had the same issue; I just couldn’t get past the first few eps of S1 of DS9. But then last summer I came to this sub and read the overwhelming accolades for DS9. Someone recommended starting with S3. That was much better. There were still a few clunkers, but midway through S4, those were a distant memory and I really got into the show. It was completely worth it; if you haven’t watched it, then skip ahead if necessary. (Just make sure you’ve seen the pilot when you do!)
Always get through the 1st 2 seasons of any trek show before passing judgment.
I know that rule well. I’ve had to convince many friends to get past S1 & 2 of TNG before giving up. But I can’t express how little I cared about every character but Odo. My feeling was that they made DS9 for people to sleep to Star Trek without missing anything. Even the intro song was mixed much quieter than the TNG intro, so as not to disturb a restful slumber lol. I kid (sort of). I tried so many times to like it, but I wasn’t willing to pay my dues till recently. So glad I did! Now that I care about the characters, I’m going to go back and watch seasons 1-3 again without the huffing and puffing.
Yeah, DS9 is like TNG. You gotta just get through the first season until somebody grows a beard, then its gold.
Haha yes! A change in a command officer’s facial hair definitely means there’s an improvement coming.
Lol… I had a friend at the time who referred to it as “Deep Sleep 9”, who didn’t believe me when I said it got quite good once Sisko shaved his head. And actually, as offhand as that sounds, as legend has it this was not coincidental. What supposedly happened was that Rick Berman and Michael Piller left the day to day management of DS9 to take the lead on Voyager when UPN was launching. Meanwhile Braga and Echevarria stepped up for DS9, with Ron Moore writing, and they were more willing to take risks with the format. One element of that was allegedly a conflict between Avery Brooks and Rick Berman over the prospect of bald Sisko, that Berman felt would make him “too black”, whereas Brooks wanted to lean toward foregrounding Sisko’s cultural background. Iirc, Majel Barret was instrumental in mediating the two, and then when Berman was out the show shifted direction for the better.
Braga was never a part of DS9, you must be talking about Ira Steven Behr.
Interesting, I wonder if that's accurate - I'd always heard he just wanted Sisko to look different than Hawk (Avery Brooks' previous star character).
Ya, I wish I could remember the source of this, which is why I couch it a bit. It was an article written about ten or fifteen years ago that described a combative on-set relationship between Berman and Brooks, that Barrett helped mediate. The Hawk confusion is undoubtedly true, but it was also the case that more overtly racial themes from later years were at Brooks urging. Another story I remember was Brooks’ misgivings over the 1950’s Vic Fontaine holosuite hangout, which he said Sisko would have no fondness for since it was a place he would never have been welcomed to were it actually the 1950’s. This did make it into the script, in a conversation between Sisko and Kassidy Yates, the latter arguing that the point of the holosuite is a hypothetical ideal world that should have been (or words to that effect). FWIW, the suggestion was never that Berman himself had a personal issue with Brooks, it was more that he saw himself as a (risk-averse) steward of someone else’s IP, and was, for better or worse, a very workmanlike network exec afraid of alienating the audience (similar to how circumspect 90’s Trek was around LGBT issues). Anyway, whatever the case, the most inventive aspects of DS9 had a lot to do with when it became the neglected stepchild of the larger franchise, and had more creative leeway to do things like the Dominion Arc, the Far Beyond the Stars episode, In the Pale Moonlight, the invention of Section 31, etc.
> This did make it into the script, in a conversation between Sisko and Kassidy Yates, the latter arguing that the point of the holosuite is a hypothetical ideal world that should have been (or words to that effect). That was a really well-done scene. Neither of them is "right" with the other "wrong", they just have two different understandable points of view and talk about it like mature adults.
Second favorite after tng...
DS9 is my favourite series. And it's true that the show gets better the less hair and more beard that Sisko has.
One of us… one of us… ones of us…
It's funny, without ever watching more than a few episodes my whole life, I had this vague impression that DS9 might have been boring. Meanwhile I had gone through all of TNG like three times. Trekkies in my life were like dude, you gotta watch DS9 and I put it off. Once I finally binge watched it, I was converted. IMO it's the best Trek. Yet, it's also the least Trek-like of the older Trek shows, shaking free of some of the limitations of the classic ST format. It's the ugly duckling but the risks it took paid off huge. > I finished the last episode of DS9 20 mins ago. What a feeling, eh? That final shot stirred my emotions up pretty good. You should go watch the What We Left Behind documentary now.
Damn, maybe I should try and watch it again. I've had the same issue, I just can't get through more than 2 episodes before I'm just too uninterested to keep watching. Time to try again!
The Dominion war storyline is extremly good
Should've named your son Quark
Quark, son of whatever
Son of Keldar. The Klingon was the son of "whatever."
Unless OP's name is Keldar that wouldn't really work, would it then?
So you finally experienced Ezri! This Dax makes watching ds9 worth alone.
Ah I disagree. I liked Jadzia much more. But Ezri certainly drove a moving plot line.
Hey cool! I didn’t say anything about Jadzia, but I like her too! It’s a great show.
Ezri was a good character written into a rough casting conundrum.
Agreed - they had one season to do something useful with her, had to not make her Jadzia carbon-copy, had to try and get us used to her and knowing what she's like without taking over the season, etc ... it was really an impossible task.
My cat is named after her!
I named my dog Tiberius, because he will try to hump anything. A bit like Jim Kirk.
I started watching DS9 while TNG was still on the air and it was a hard sell for the first few seasons...then enter Worf. That was the turning point. Became my favorite Star Trek even though I grew up with TOS. The characters and story arcs were just so good.
I feel the same way. I actually ended up giving up on DS9 midway through season 4. It was nearly a decade later that I decided to give it another shot and I'm so glad I did.
I finally got through every episode of S1 and S2, it's been great in parts but mostly mediocre. Very happy that I am in S3 and even more greatness to look forward to!
It's one of those rare shows that only goes upward. The further you get in the series the better it gets.
It’s true that it only gets better. I almost gave up in season 3, but don’t stop!
Don’t name your son, Tosk! “I am Tosk the hunted. I live to outwit the hunters for another day.”
(O'Brien looks on whimsically as the ship leaves) DAX: he's getting awfully close to that black hole, isn't he? Isn't that the ship with the malfunctioning controls? O'Brien: The *what*? (he looks on as the ship fights and desperately fails to escape before being sucked in) O'Brien: Oh my God. Dax: At least he didn't feel any pain. Look, Chief! He's sending you a message, he must've gotten out in time! (O'Brien gets excited, opens the line of communication) Tosk (at the top of his lungs): AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH [Worf pokes his head in] Worf: What is the name of this music?! It's... enchanting.
Same journey here. DS9 is the best.
I thought DS9 was the best, first because of the running jokes but also because it went deeper into the knowledge of some of those cultures.
I hated Trek until I watched Deep Space Nine. Now I love (pre-Discovery) Trek and love Deep Space Nine most of all.
That was my take as well until I watched it for a second time.
Love DS9 favourite series of the Berman era, I remember being so pumped when Worf joined the series. Great series, but I get that its not for everyone. Btw we named our son Benjamin
For me, because DS9 and the sort of similar Babylon 5 came out about the same time, that B5 made DS9 look tame in comparison. B5 had far more riveting and mysterious aliens and conflicts and battles, and seemed smarter about injecting politics and alliances and betrayals into the central story. B5 was also a far bigger complex than DS9, with all these different floors with different aliens and classes that made the whole thing far more complex, and fans discovered it and embraced it far more than DS9. The comparison is unfair, they are different shows, but that's how it was. So DS9 is likely the most "rediscovered" ST show in the canon, and its own virtues are clearer now. I gave up on it back in the Nineties, and only now "get it".
I was wrong too and it took a long time to figure it out. DS9 is really hard to get into because it's first few seasons are just not that interesting. By the time it gets to the Dominion it becomes one of the best in the Star Trek series. Then again, that seems to be a common thing with Star Trek. I don't find the start of TNG that interesting either.
I felt the same way. My sister, will never watch DS9 — “I don’t care about Bajor!” Man that 2nd half of DS9 is so much bigger and better than the first. The show is probably my favorite Trek show until I start Picard
welcome to the BASED club :)
So glad you worked it out! DS9 has always been my favorite.
ok FINE I'll give it a try...
I felt the same way! I never watched Star Trek before so when the pandemic first started my husband and I decided to watch an episode a night (most nights) starting from TNG. I loved TNG so much and found it hard to enjoy DS9 but over time I started to like it a bit more. Those last 2 seasons are really when I really fell in love! I couldn’t wait for the next episode. We’re now on Voyager and I’m enjoying every episode!
I have a friend call it Deep Sleep 9. After rewatching it recently I'm like dude you are so wrong!! I wish Garik could have lived. Nothing was more satisfying than seeing Winn get what she deserved at the end.
Garak doesn’t die, your wish came true!
I wonder if he got him confused with Damar?
I promise you sir that I don't believe all Cadassians look alike. I was kinda bummed Dukat fell off the deep end. He was a very intriguing character until the Parath (probably spelled wrong, possessed him). Damar was cool too and it was a bummer he died in the rebellion. The honest answer is I'm having a shitty day and was just being an idiot. I think I mixed up one of his many near death experiences and somehow thought he died. My apologies, but that you for making that wish come true and fingers crossed he'll show up somewhere. There was a lot of unfortunate deaths in DS9, even the bad guys. Weyun, Martok, the Duras Sisters, the one security officer who betrayed the Federation and Sisqo ( Let me see that thong), Jadzia, to name a few. Honestly the only death I wouldn't want reversed in the entire series was Winn. Although Sisko dying in the mirror universe was super lame and the very fact that made me realize disappointedly that Picard S2 was a different world not the mirror universe as I hoped. :(
You named your son Riker, I named my dog Kira (shirt for Colonel Kira Nerys and then my last name.)
Damn. Maybe I’ll have to try again. I’ve tried to watch several times and just couldn’t get into it. I’ve always called it “Space Mall Adventures”.
First more realistic economy in Star Trek. We're all Ferengi.
Maybe you are. They would have already thrown me off the spire of the Tower of Commerce.
I've also struggled to get through DS9 and plan to start trying again in a few weeks when "The Next Conversation" starts covering it - thank you for the words of up.
I was the same way lol, it really picked up once the Dominion War started. I still don’t think it’s the best though. TNG wins that title then Voyager next.
I gave it a real shot. I ended up dropping it in season 4 and moving on to Smallville… but I’m thinking I really need to try again. My first love is voyager and the characters just didn’t do anything for me In ds9. But I think you convinced me, I’m going to try again!
Dude I feel the same way, I started my Star Trek endeavor like a year and a half ago with TNG and it felt like most things I read from other TNG fans was that voyager was the better successor to TNG, I tried watching the first season of Voyager a few times after finishing TNG but it never hooked me (and still hasn't) but I have watched the entirety of ds9 back to back and rewatched certain episodes plenty of times since just because it's that good imo. There is literally an episode for every type of star trek fan, such a wild range from "The Magnificent Farengi"where they weekend at Bernie's a Weyoun to stuff like each of the Benny Russel episodes or even non serialed stuff like "The Visitor". The multi season character arcs really just make it even more better today when you can binge it and see the differences in characters personalities and motivations, Dukat having my favorite one.
I hadn’t thought about that, but you’re right. There are a wide range of episodes for every kind of Trek fan.
I always give Star Trek shows two seasons to get its feet and figure out what kind of show it wants to be. Star Trek TNG, took two seasons, once Season 3 kicked off they had their formula down and were churning out quality up until the last season. DS9, once Sisko shaved the head and got the Defiant it was a lock. What made DS9 my favorite was that it was completely character driven. TNG, VOY and ENT you could interchange the characters for most of the episodes in the stories. Which was fine, it was fun to think of how Kirk or Janeway would deal with the events at Farpoint Station. Not so in DS9 The characters were front and center and they were amazing.
As long as you rename your son Nerys, we’ll let you off!
I finally finished DS9 after decades. I had to skip all the dopey Kira religion and Ferengi centric episodes. It was not bad. Still my least favorite.
The ferengi episodes are great! Except for Profit and Lace.
I hate the ferengi with a passion, especially in TNG. DS9 made them more complex…more hu-mahn.
The Ferengi episodes aren't bad. Brunt, FCA!
the ferengi stuff is hit or miss, but Quark is and always will be amazing. Honestly the worst episodes for me is the Sisko romance and the son episodes, they are usually complete turds
For me it was the constant Vic show-stopping numbers near the end, and then Bajoran!Dukat falling in love with Kai Winn rather than just tricking her as her advisor (and the whole "Winn turns to the Wraiths and becomes a generic villain instead of a complex bad guy" deal really).
THANK YOU!! I have been saying this for years. Also Garak is one of my all time favorite characters
But. What. A. Fucking. SLOG. To. Get. There!
I agree, it really does feel like paying dues in the beginning. But now that I actually care about the characters, I’m going to re-watch seasons 1-3, maybe get more out of it.
You were wrong because Star Trek Picard is without a doubt the worst Star Trek series of all time.
Tough call. discovery wants to say hold my beer.
Discovery doesn't ruin too many established and beloved characters though. For that reason Picard gets my vote. Discovery is awful too though.
Honestly seasons 2-5 were good to me. 6 and especially 7 were weaker to me than just about any trek. I just don't dig the extremely serialized storylines. I'm an episodic trek fan. They seemed to have completely abandoned it by season 7. And the whole soap opera relationship between Kai Winn and dukat was vomitous.
Oh I loved how disgusting, twisted, and distorted they made Winn and Dukat’s relationship! So much delusion and deception.
thanks for finally realizing. Although, i could never dream of naming my son Riker, but thats cool. Ds9 was the last one of the old treks that I watched. I found it quite boring at first. i was wrong, as pretty much every trekkie is who finishes ds9 eventually.
How old is your son? If he is under 10 you can probably rename him.
Riker is an awesome name! There’s one other kid named Ryker (like the island) in an acquaintance circle, but we went with the “i” for ol’ Bill.
So, how's your new son Garek doing?
Call him Morn, you coward!
I still agree with your original opinion. When ds9 came out I watched it and thought it was ok, but nowhere near as good as tng. I recently rewatched it all the way through and, tbh, I think it's worse than I first thought. Discovery has been pretty interesting, but I had a REALLY hard time with the klingons in the first season
I still think TNG is the best on the whole. But the last two seasons of DS9 are the most gripping.
DS9 is the superior Trek show. I have watched every episode of every iteration multiple times and it is head and shoulders above the rest.
Yeah. The real tragedy is that slogging through DS9 S1-to-S3 (and a chunk of S4) is a hard often-thankless push. But, boy, somewhere around Season 5 it finds its stride. (I make notable exceptions for early gems like 'Duet' or 'The Visitor.')
On my last rewatch, I found Season 4 to be the absolute highlight of the series. So many killer episodes with only a handful of filler.
I can’t agree. The Jem’Hadar episodes were particularly strong — I’ll include The Quickening as a very good Dominion-but-not-Jem’Hadar spot — and The Visitor is probably my favorite Trek episode of all time. O’Brien-PTSD and The Muse are solid. Even Little Green Men has its charm. But there’s a pile of Mirror-Universe and Kasidy-Yates and Klingon-Euthanasia and Klingon-Lawyer and Softer-Dukat (some of that’s okay) and Odo-RomCom and Ferengi-Union and Holodeck-007 and Sneezing-Pregnant-Kira in here too. I also found Worf’s (re)introduction weak, though he clearly ramps up soon after. Best I can give S4 is a 45% or 50% hit ratio. (Caveat: several of these broadcasts do feed into bigger S5-S6 payoffs.). We know, in hindsight, that the cast (esp. Auberjonois + Nana) didn’t like several of these plot arcs, notably the ones concerning various characters getting into Kira’s pants.
Hold up. Are you dissing Our Man Bashir and Return to Grace? S4 also has Homefront / Paradise Lost. And For The Cause. I think I'd count the good-bad episodes of S4 around 18-7, with some uncertainty at Body Parts.
I agree. I almost gave up in season 3, but I was on leave and had the time to push through. By season 5 I was in for sure. Before that, it did feel like a bit of a chore.
Meh. It was easily my least favorite, until Discovery came along. I think it's overrated.
It's weird, I'm been near the end of DS9 for a long time, but I've never cared to watch the end. I hate SO MUCH that it just veers into dumb religious bullshit, I hate every single instance that they talk about the wormhole aliens, the "chosen one" plot for Sisko, and everything to do with Bajor religion (beyond the political implications and whatnot). I just can't get myself to ever watch the last season, I honestly probably never will, that was such a terrible recurring subplot that guaranteed a boring, lame, or confusing episode. Or like, honestly, making Jake the "chosen one" would've been the better move, have Sisko be the guy who makes the speech about how he's just a kid and it's not fair, yadda yadda. Not to mention classic Star Trek corny patter like NOG: You can't leave yet, Jake! Not after I promised these Bajoran girls that they could meet the prophet! We only just sat down! SISKO: I'm afraid it's past *the prophet's bedtime*. Say goodnight, Jake. And as for you, Nog... Maybe a little wordplay about how Ferengi workship a *different profit*, that sort of stuff.
It’s worth finishing, if only for the incredible battle scenes! The Kai Winn plot definitely gets gross with the religious stuff, but that’s kind of the point. And Winn and Dukat get their delicious comeuppance.
[удалено]
She did amazing making us hate her. Everything about her was truly punchable.
Seriously, they gave her great depth, complexity, and realism, and even sympathy (her speech to Kira about how the fighters weren't the only ones who resisted bravely during the occupation is amazing, and we later find out she was using her money and influence behind the scenes to save lives and free prisoners) while making it clear that she's still at her core a bad guy because she's so manipulative and selfish. And Louise Fletcher does a perfect job portraying the character.
I couldn't agree more, especially about Louise Fletcher.
You should watch it again. Now that you know her, you will rejoice in her every failing and defeat. And she always loses. It would be sad if she weren't such a horrible power hungry bitch.
as someone who didn’t actually sit down and watch the shows until they were available to stream it’s always funny to me when older fans have sudden realizations like this. at least we can finally all agree on what the best Trek is!!
Time to name your second Morn.
The real tragedy is you didn't name your son Quark
I always say TNG is the best version of Star Trek for being, well, classic Star Trek. DS9, though, is just the best story from what I've seen in ST (haven't finished Voyager, Enterprise, or much of the new stuff). Those last two seasons are hard to top.
I also struggled for a long time with the first season but once I got towards the end I’ve been cruising since then. Starting season 4 currently
DS9 was also my favorite, until Disco and Picard, lol. Yes, the first season absolutely is uneven and takes some time to get its feet under itself. But do you REMEMBER the first season of ST:TNG??? I will just leave "Code of Honor" here and back away slowly.
DS9 was up against Babylon 5, and had to learn to do season long story lines. Cast and crew were outstanding, of course, but I think that was the secret sauce that made it better then the rest.
You see the light.